Mets To Send McLean To Mound In Premiere Pitching Matchup
· Yahoo Sports
The New York Mets don’t offer much of a challenge for the Los Angeles Dodgers on paper, but the second game of their three-game set does come with a great pitching matchup, as Nolan McLean will be on the mound tonight against Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Dodgers at Citi Field.
The Mets are buried at the bottom of the NL East standings, but this will be a good challenge for McLean. He appears to have found something in his last four starts as he’s given up just two earned runs in those outings, with three of them resulting in wins for the Mets.
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There are two or three obvious things to watch for in a McLean start during this stretch. The biggest is whether he’s throwing strikeouts and getting ahead in counts, which is probably the most important key to his success. Also, keep an eye on whether he’s working off his fastball, as that’s been another source of success for the rookie right-hander lately.
The final one is whether McLean is hunting strikeouts. He knows how to get them, and he’s learning more about how with every start, but the downside is that it almost always costs him length. McLean seems to be understanding that more with each effort, so it will be intriguing to see what happens to his learning curve in this one.
As for Yamamoto, he’s already where McLean wants to be. He comes ino this one with a road record of 6-2 that features a 2.24 ERA and 50 strikelouts. Yamamoto did have a bad start against the Arizona Diamondbacks recently in which he gave up six earned runs, but he spun a complete game in his last start against the New York Yankees in which he gave up two earned runs while striking out seven.
Offensively, this is also a mismatch. The Mets are a feast or famine team with their offesnse, and famine is never very far away. The odds that they’ll break out against Yamamoto are low, especially with Juan Soto likely out with calf soreness that had him scheduled for an MRI today.
That means McLean will have to pitch under pressure against the toughest lineup in baseball, and that’s taken a toll on him this season, too. He does love the spotlight, though, so hopefully tonight’s challenge brings out the best in him as the Mets try to give their fans reason to watch during a desultory season that hasn’t gone well at all to date.